Pages

8/01/2014

Rainbow Tea Party Birthday Party

I gave you all a sneak peak into our preparations a little over a week ago, so I'm excited to be able to share a few pictures from the latest birthday in our house, for a very excited and eager party planner of the just turned 5 variety. In reality this "party" was just a small get together with a few friends. Our house is small and we can't handle too much of a crowd, so Lu just asked to have all of the girls from her playgroup (which she has been a part of since she was 18 months!) over for tea. It was a fun morning which she (and the other girls I hope!) really enjoyed.

I'm planning a few more detailed posts about the party, as planning for this party has been a huge time sink lately...and I can't say I have much else to show you! I'll link here as they go live.

Lu's all about the party favors right now. For months before her birthday she talks about what great gifts she wants to give her friends, and she wants to help make them too. For this party we were lucky enough to score tiny pink and purple tea sets from the dollar store. Yay! She's been talking about making felt food for months, and she REALLY wanted to make them for her friends. She make the felt "cupcakes" that you see below and helped with some of the donuts and cinnamon rolls (Inspired by these). I filled in with some cookies and tea bags resembling some that I saw on Pinterest a while back (links anyone?)

The tea sets went in big paper bags which we made to resemble tea bags, While the stuffed goodies were used to fill our pinata...

Here's a pic of the ice cream shaped pinata (found at Hobby Lobby and bought for less than $10 with a coupon) which held all of our felt goodies. When the pinata broke open the girls were each instructed to pick up just one of each treat.

A few months back I went to a luncheon with some other moms were we decorated hats. Lu was totally smitten with the idea and wanted to decorate hats at her birthday party. She really wanted them in a variety of colors. I found these on amazon. I wish that I could have found hats cheaper--I imagine that I might have been able to in the spring--but it was the best that I could find in the summer. Luckily I scored lots of silk flowers for ridiculously cheap (90% off) and boas ($9-10 each, reduced to 50 cents each!), which made my party budget go quite a bit further.

The girls enjoyed making their hats, although I always forget how crazy crafting can become with kids. Lu will sit and craft for hours by herself, but put her in an environment where there are lots of friends over and she's totally over crafting in 5 minutes (or less!) I imagined the girls sitting and working on their hats for a bit, but the girls were done soooo quickly!

The girls decorated their hats and then I used a glue gun to attach all the flowers on where they wanted them. After the girls dressed up in their hats and boas, they took pictures in a simple photo booth we set up by covering our bookshelf with several plastic tablecloths from the Dollar Store. Finally we opened up our sunroom where the girls feasted on way too much sugar (note to self: plan more healthy options next time!)

Alright, so this post is already feeling super long. Here's a few pictures of the food though, quickly. The cake pops and strawberries were covered in chocolate. I selected these foods because I thought they were things the girls would enjoy dipping and covering with sprinkles. (My kitchen floor cries now every time sprinkles are brought out). I made fruit kabobs a while back for another party, and I just included them because they look pretty and are healthy. The rainbow jello has a family story behind it that I will tell you about in another post, along with the recipe. And the sugar cubes? Well yeah, who makes their own sugar cubes? no way, right? Well, I saw these on pinterest while looking for something else entirely, and I thought I'd read about how they were made. And then I thought, hmm...that actually sounds really easy and something that my very fancy just turned 5 year old would think was really cool. I ended up having to change some things to make them work, so I'll post more about that in another post...